Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Tombstone Tuesday - Query from Belgium

I'm Wouter De Boeck from Belgium and I found a family member from my mother's side of the family tree who moved to California: Peter Van der Auwera, who died in Sacramento (Mercy Hospital).

Peter was a native of Boom, Belgium and came to the US in 1910, one year after his half-brother Joseph did. In 1918, Peter and his (second) wife, Rose Dillenbeck, moved to Placerville (9 Gilmore Street), El Dorado county, California. Peter was a photographer and conducted a photo studio for several years. He also invested in real estate and lost a building in a fire in 1930.

His family in Belgium was very poor and almost everyone had been working in the famous brick factories.